Final Fantasy VII: Judgment
by Mystraker
Summary: This is a series of three vignettes centered on the event which changed everything for all characters involved in Final Fantasy VII: the death of Aerith. Please feel free to leave comments, reviews, and /or criticism (constructive, if you would). Questions are also welcome (these installments are very introspective, so there could be some ambiguities). Thank you very much!
1. Innocence

FINAL FANTASY VII: Judgment

DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII is property of Square Enix, and not myself.

I. Innocence

She could feel it. Everything was coming full circle for her now; the cycle that had been set in motion several generations past was coming to a close. The lineage of her people and their entire legacy had been distilled into her very person, and now the time had come to finish her work.

Aerith could hardly have asked for a more awe-inspiring and profound setting. While the Temple of the Ancients had been flooded with the echoes of her Cetra ancestors, the Forgotten City was the true cradle of their civilization, a testament to their inexorable connection to the Planet and the aetheric streams of life which granted consciousness and movement to the existence of all things.

She continued to kneel at the center of its subterranean expanse, which was punctuated by the crystalline spiral leading to her place of peace. It was beautiful, to be sure, but Aerith's eyes were not open. She was wholly focused upon making the earnest pleas of her heart known to the Planet, and to the Lifestream in concert. Clutching the small white orb in her folded hands, she tried to pour her soul out, using the Holy Materia as the conduit for the salvation of the Planet.

Her deepest feelings and instincts told her she needn't fear, but she was unable to elude the doubt creeping in upon her. She hoped she was doing everything right, and that it would be enough. Being Cetra, she had always known she carried a special link to the Planet and its life force, and a particular burden with it. Still, she had not been raised within the nurturing embrace of her people, and so she had not been taught their ways as fully as she might have been. She had to rely upon trusting her feelings, thinking things through, and praying that her courage would not fail.

She knew that true empathy for her was beyond any other living being remaining in the world, but she wasn't bitter. She knotted her brow and tightened her grasp on the Materia as she thought of her friends who had braved so much at her side. She only hoped they could somehow come to understand why all this had to happen…especially him.

She hoped for Cloud the most, yet she already knew he would likely understand least of all. He would take it all upon himself and close himself off, just as he always did; then it would keep tearing him apart, as it always had.

Her eyes snapped open as her breath caught. She could feel the sudden interruption of the equilibrium in her solitude, violated by an implacable malignance. She could feel _him_. _Sephiroth_ had come at last. She knew her time was very short now. Steadying her breath and the heaving of her chest, she resolved to continue giving her utmost until the end. It was all she could give. But now she could also sense the determined presences of her compatriots, descending through the translucent maze. Cloud's single-minded focus stood out as clearly as his shock of blond hair, and Aerith allowed herself a wry grin.

The footsteps were beginning to echo from on high, gradually rising in their volume and cadence. She wouldn't cry. She couldn't let herself break, as much as she wanted to in that instant. She would miss him—miss him in the flesh, of course. She wouldn't ever really leave him—or any of them—behind, but it would never be the same again. She realized her knees hurt and her body was stiff, compounding her turmoil. There was so much she wanted Cloud to know, but she took some comfort in knowing him: the _real_ him, not the fragmented persona that created his incomplete veneer.

 _The gondola at the Gold Saucer._ The seats were plush, and the cabin was amply comfortable despite being otherwise bare. The lights, sounds, and smells at the theme park and casino were overwhelming, but the low thrumming of the machinery took the two up to a height far enough removed from the resort to provide a peculiar peace. Cloud had balked at the prospect of a night out with her alone at first, and he was similarly transparent in his awkwardness here. His eyes darted about, away from her own, as if to search out some kind of threat in a corner of the enclosure.

Aerith smiled. _Poor Cloud_ , she thought. Reaching out a hand, she tapped him on the knee. His eyes went wide as he started slightly, and she couldn't suppress a giggle.

"Cloud, look." She pointed outside, and they looked at the dramatic vista of the apparently precariously balanced ovoid structures stacked upon each other. It was impressive, as far as buildings went. Cloud seemed to be a little more at ease with something else to focus his attention towards. Aerith sighed. She honestly wished he would pay a little more attention to _her_ , as juvenile as that might seem. She had never quite been able to understand why there was so much of Zack in his personality and behavior, but she saw so much that was unique. He didn't have his gregarious bearing or self-assurance; that was certain. This actually endeared him to her, because there was something delightfully naïve about him, for all his apparent coolness and tough exterior. She couldn't help but grin at his vulnerability, but still…

 _I wish he just felt safe with me…the way I learned how to feel before,_ she thought.

After seeing the chocobos and their jockeys flash by on the racetrack, Cloud's eyes finally met hers. Honesty was never an issue for Aerith, so she simply lent a voice to her thinking.

"…First off, it bothered me how you looked exactly alike. Two different people who happen to look so similar. The way you walk, gesture…I think I must have seen him again, in you." His eyes were aglow with not just Mako, but expression—confusion, in this case.

She shook her head and shifted her gaze downward, suddenly uneasy. "But you're different. Things are different. Cloud…I'm searching for you."

Now he looked utterly dumbfounded. "I want to meet you," she continued.

"But I'm right here," he replied as he cocked his head.

"I know, I know. What I mean is, I want to meet…you." Her voice had gone soft, almost to a whisper. She brushed aside a lock of hair as she looked him in the eyes once more. She realized that didn't sound all that different, but she hoped it had gotten through somehow.

The remainder of the gondola ride passed in lamentable silence, and then it was over almost as soon as it began. _This is why I have to do what I'm doing, Cloud. I have to help save the Planet, yeah, but I want you to understand me, and for you to understand yourself._

Her eyes snapped open as her reverie was broken, and there he was in front of her. His sword was in hand, and she could hear his knuckles cracking from gripping it so hard, poised for a savage vertical blow. His body was trembling from unbearable tension, and his face was split in a feral grimace, but it was his eyes which shocked her the most. The wonderfully vibrant blues were grotesquely morphed into a fluctuating shade of sickly green, and riven by unholy slits as black as the abyss.

"CLOUD!" A voice cried out from a few meters away, and suddenly the horrifying beast masquerading as Cloud evaporated.

"Ugh…what are you making me do…?" he rasped, clutching his head.

Aerith looked up into Cloud's face. She smiled kindly, just one last time; the harbinger of death was descending.

 _SHUNK_

She felt the blade slide effortlessly between her shoulder blades. She saw her blood spatter across the holy dais. Coughing, she slumped forward. _…Cloud…please…find yourself…_

Death was merciless yet strangely painless for this innocent one.


	2. Guilt

DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII is property of Square Enix, and not myself.

II. Guilt

He hardly felt anything.

Standing in the small lake, hidden in the midst of the impossibly white thicket of the Forgotten City, Cloud held Aerith.

 _No. Aerith is_ gone. _Gone…_

His body had somehow unclenched as his awareness snapped back into himself. Cloud's grip on his sword slackened, and it clattered to the ground violently, leaving a rent in the dais. The agony in his head was beyond measure, as if his very synapses were being detonated and raining acidic ruin throughout his body. Stumbling off balance, he staggered back a step before regaining his equilibrium. He could open his eyes now without being blinded by pain, but the ringing in his mind persisted. Aerith was before him, still kneeling; however, her face was no longer a peaceful image of contemplation, but a visage of compassion. Cloud stared blankly at her.

 _That look…did she know something? Did she understand what was happening to him? Did she even care that he had almost murdered her?_

Then, Cloud felt a draft of air and the flapping sound of a cloak, and then his world was upended.

Sephiroth stood poised over Aerith as the Masamune impaled her; the alpha predator relishing the thrill of this particular kill. Cloud gasped and his eyes flicked toward the dread legend. The infernal grin on Sephiroth's thin lips brought Cloud back to his senses. He had nearly fallen forward in his rush to catch Aerith before her body fell to the floor, and he just about managed it; despite his superhuman physical aptitude, her form felt leaden, as if holding her would drag him through the dais into the depths below.

He had exchanged words with Sephiroth, desperate to wake up. His cruel taunting had made no sense. _Pretending to be sad? Acting as if he were angry? 'You have no heart, and cannot feel any pain'…?_

Of COURSE he could feel pain! He had felt panicked, distraught, and enraged all at once when the light left Aerith's eyes. Right?

The next several minutes passed in a haze. Not the haze of numbing incomprehension and despair, but a bloody miasma. Sephiroth had suddenly launched himself upward, flinging something in the opposite direction. The thing landed on the dais with a sickening _plop_. Cloud's eyes snapped toward the object, and he realized it was some kind of alien appendage…before his head exploded.

The thing seemed to react to Cloud's response, for it began to pulse and writhe as it absorbed the small pool of its own bizarre, bluish-green blood. Then it started to grow and morph, squirming violently as it did so, until it resolved into a reddish abomination with a hellish visage and wing-like growths lined with tentacles.

It was _very_ familiar to Cloud. This was another piece of Jenova, come to torment him in Sephiroth's immediate absence. Cloud felt a snarl peeling his lips back from his teeth, baring them like beastly fangs. His eyes burst into twin flares of light as the red mist descended on his being. Faster than the eye could see, he leapt forward and seized his sword. His friends were shouting and clamoring to join him in the coming fight, but Cloud didn't really hear them, nor did he care.

All he cared about right now was vengeance, and his whole world was subsumed by the need to kill this _thing_.

Cloud's feet were sure and swift as power surged through him. Jenova turned its head toward him and flung several tentacles toward him, seeking to plunge them into his flesh. Leaping upward, Cloud easily dodged them all and his jump carried into a quick front flip. While still inverted, Cloud sliced horizontally above his head, severing the mass of tendrils. He landed on their stumps and continued his sprint toward Jenova's head.

The creature hissed and bellowed, thrashing to unbalance Cloud. He was thrown clear, but quickly adapted into a forward roll. Getting to his feet quickly, Cloud turned and instinctively uncoiled in a vertical cut, releasing a potent salvo of crescents of energy at the monster. As if to mock Cloud, the beast replied by spewing a gout of watery flame, countering Cloud's attack.

People were moving and yelling around Cloud. He wasn't paying attention to them, although he could recognize weapons being drawn and spells being cast. It didn't matter to him, as long as he destroyed this living slice of hell. Jenova was dividing its attention amongst the other targets present, exchanging attacks with the rest of the party.

Despite being outnumbered, Jenova was handling the party's offensive adroitly. The creature was large and apparently ungainly, but this was deceptive; its tentacles and magical barrages were pushing the members of the group to their limits. Cloud grew progressively more frustrated as the fight continued in an impasse, as he parried attacks with the flat of his blade and cleft new incoming appendages. The foul body parts of the creature would fall away, only to be replaced by multiple new growths, eager to maim and slay.

Cloud's head was wracked with white-hot flame, but his mind was suddenly filled by a starburst of clarity. In the space of a moment, all the images, sounds, and feelings he had experienced with Aerith shuffled through his mind's eye. Looking up at her from the ruined flower bed, a mixture of amusement and concern on her face; picking their way through the rubble of the slums; her irrepressible giggling as she hatched the plan to infiltrate Corneo's mansion by dressing him as a woman; her exhaustion and relief after being freed at Shinra HQ; her fury when he had deliberately ruined the stage production at the Gold Saucer; the peculiar look she had given him on the gondola ride…

 _"I want to meet…you."_

With a bloodcurdling cry of rage and pain, Cloud ran forward again. Jenova was alert to him immediately, and began rendering the battlefield into a living bullet hell. He bobbed and weaved to avoid the volleys of arcane energy being fired at him, finally reaching the area near the trunk of the monster.

Then Cloud cut loose.

He slashed anywhere and everywhere about the base of Jenova's body, seeking to inflict maximum damage. Blood spouted from the myriad wounds, and Jenova shrieked hatefully. It maneuvered its head and limbs to try and pluck out the irritant and tear it to indistinct ribbons…which was exactly what Cloud wanted.

Dashing back out into the open, Cloud picked his spot and jumped once more, landing on the monster's back. Reversing the grip on his sword, Cloud plunged it straight down into Jenova. Not wasting a moment, Cloud continued to drag the sword through its flesh as he traversed what passed for its spine. Jenova thrashed even more maniacally with a massive fissure in its back. Cloud, his jaw set, did not lose his footing nor his grip on his weapon.

 _One._ A diagonal strike sheared clean through Jenova's spine, neutralizing its nervous system.

 _Two._ Another diagonal slash took Jenova's head, and it flew into the waters surrounding the circle of battle.

Cloud leapt down from the beast. His boots hit the floor and his sword had been replaced on his back before the carcass struck the ground.

 _Three_. Focusing his inner spiritual strength, Cloud forcefully thrust his clenched fists forward to guide his effort. A bright, green glow emanated from his left wrist as savage bolts of lightning arced and cascaded into the massive corpse, quickly reducing it all to ash.

Turning about, Cloud stoically moved and gently lifted Aerith's body. He glanced briefly at the faces of his comrades. Their expressions ranged from sorrow, to anger, to worry, to shock. He could barely register their emotions.

Now standing in the water, eyes vacant, Cloud was starting to wonder. He couldn't feel much now. As overwhelming as Aerith's lifeless weight had been after she fell, she seemed almost ethereal to him now, even though he stared straight at her body in his hands. He supposed the water was probably ice cold, but he couldn't tell; the Mako energy coursing throughout his system created sustaining warmth, even in frigid conditions, but it had its limits. Even so, Cloud was still unsure of any feeling he thought he sensed at the moment.

Somehow, he urged himself forward, taking slow, small steps further into the lake. Soon he was up to his waist, and the water began to lap at Aerith's body. As he moved forward, Cloud realized that the water was no longer getting any deeper, even though he was standing in the middle of the lake. It seemed impossible, but it was like he was standing on an invisible plateau under the water, even though the bottom of the lake could be seen many meters below him.

Cloud didn't know what to make of it. He didn't even really care. Aerith was dead.

He didn't want to let her go, but what was he supposed to do now? He couldn't just stand there forever, could he? Could he?

Suddenly his arms twitched. Startled into awareness by the involuntary motion, Cloud slowly moved his arms away, back to his sides. Aerith's body lolled a bit as his support vanished, but little by little, she sank beneath the surface. She seemed to be dragged further and further down by a bizarre magnetism, as if the Forgotten City was reclaiming one of its own.

Cloud stood transfixed on the platform which should not have been, watching Aerith's body disappear deeper and deeper. Then, despite clearly seeing the floor of the lake through the transparent waters, Aerith's body simply ceased to be present in his vision, rather than coming to rest at the bottom.

These phenomena might have piqued curiosity in someone else. Cloud could only turn mechanically and trudge onto the shore.

The party had chosen to stay in one of the strange, shell-like dwellings of the Forgotten City for the night. Cloud had slept dreamlessly, being completely drained. But the true nightmare lay in the waking hours. The party congregated in one of the small houses. Sitting on the bed, head in his hands, Cloud was nonetheless aware that they were all staring at him but unsure how to break the silence. Either that, or they were waiting for him to say something heroic to galvanize everyone in their new objective.

He may not have dreamt the night before, but a fearsome beast had taken hold within him and was shredding his insides: guilt. He was sure that he could have prevented Aerith's murder. All he had to do was raise his blade and parry Sephiroth's strike to either side…less than a meter to either side, and the Masamune would have impaled naught but air. It wouldn't have taken much doing at all, and he had been unable to act, even for something so simple. It had cost them all dearly, and he could have stopped it.

He looked up at his comrades, each face in turn. Barret was uneasy, shifting his weight idly and grunting occasionally. Yuffie blew a lock of hair out of her eyes in exasperation. Vincent was unreadable, Red XIII apparently grave. Cid scratched the back of his head, then turned and lit a cigarette. Cait Sith looked crestfallen. But one face gave him pause.

Tifa looked hurt. She looked like something had wounded her more deeply than any past word, gesture, or incident. The starts of tears were trying to well in her eyes, being kept at bay by very thin emotional margins. Cloud looked more closely at her, slightly confused. Had he done or said something? He certainly didn't think so. He hadn't gotten angry with her or anything of that sort. He frowned, but then his mind flashed back to the battle of the day before.

He hadn't been fighting alone, but he might as well have. He had not communicated strategy with them, asked them for help, issued instructions, or gone to their aid. He had focused on one thing: killing Jenova. His bloodlust had consumed him fully, had become him. He had only cared about destroying Jenova as violently as possible…for what? Sephiroth had gone, so it wasn't vengeance, at least not immediate retribution. He hadn't been trying to save his friends, because he had barely even been aware of their presence. All he had wanted was to destroy.

He had been no better than Sephiroth, then.

That was what hurt Tifa; Cloud had had no regard for her, or anyone else, while in the throes of his agony.

Now the guilt was so severe that he began to tremble uncontrollably. The party members backed a step away, wary that he might be possessed again. Cloud could hardly blame them, but he noticed Tifa had stayed rooted in place. Now the tears _were_ falling from her eyes.

Cloud's heart might as well have been turned to ash, just like the corpse of that piece of Jenova. But no anger or hate could be found in Tifa's face; razor-sharp sadness rent her eyes with bloodshot. Sadness, and…longing.

Cloud rubbed his eyes and stood. He knew that it was a great risk for him to continue on their mission to stop Sephiroth, but he couldn't let so much that had gone wrong to simply slip past. He was responsible for so much pain and suffering, and now Aerith's death was on his hands.

There was too much to atone for.


End file.
